


Adjusting

by Tabi



Category: Messiah (Visual Novel)
Genre: M/M, Spoilers, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-02
Updated: 2009-03-02
Packaged: 2017-10-21 16:56:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/227481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabi/pseuds/Tabi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takuto thinks over the events that took place at Kou's mansion, and considers how they might now affect his relationship with Ryouta.</p><p>(Spoilers for Ryouta's alternate ending.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adjusting

I am not a vampire.

Not very long ago, if you had suggested to me the idea that vampires even existed (outside of the collective imagination of those perpetuating the idea for their methods of entertainment), then I would only have laughed and dismissed it. If anybody had said it, I wouldn't have believed them. Do we have wizards, too? Some people have such over-active imaginations.

Not too long ago, I would have said that kind of thing. Believed it as common sense. Dismissed it without a second thought.

I have no choice in the matter, now. It's not so much a matter of belief, _do vampires exist, do they not exist_?... It can't be the excitement of those who simply _want_ to believe (and want so very much). Throwing their faith into an intangible theory (but where have I heard _that_ before?). It can't be the rational argument of sense against a fictional idea. It can't be any of those things, because I _know_. There was no question of it. In that place that made no sense, the impossible became not only possible but accepted, _normal_. A girl who can manipulate dreams, a garden where roses always bloom, a mansion disconnected from the rest of the world and there, master of 'that world', a vampire. A real vampire. A real vampire who I first met when, like any other person might, he visited the shop where I worked. It could have been anybody. _He_ could have been anybody.

(He wasn't 'anybody'. That wasn't the first time that we met.)

(Too much of it made sense for me to do anything but believe it.)

( _..._ Iam not a vampire.)

Alone with Ryouta, I feel him watch me. I don't look up at him, but I know he's doing it. Watching me with those worried eyes, shuffling around the apartment clearing magazines and tidying up, doing menial chores for the sake of being in the same room as me. I let my eyes rove across the page of the newspaper but I'm not really _reading_ it, feeling unable to do so in that cloying, awkward atmosphere. I draw the mug of coffee to my lips and keep my eyes on the paper. _Keep reading_. I hear Ryouta in the kitchen area; he's doing the washing-up now, but if I looked at him then I would still catch his eye and he would look down, embarrassed. I wonder if he thinks I don't notice, watching me as if expecting--

Expecting what? I wonder. I'm not that fragile, Ryouta. I won't die if you stop worrying. I won't vanish if you look away. That expression doesn't suit you.

I can't forgive that man for what he did. That man. _Man._ That _vampire_. I feel a smile on my lips as I consider this. No, I can't forgive him. Why not? As a vampire, he murdered. As a vampire, he contained and molested and raped and yet, when I see Ryouta's brow tight with worry _over nothing_ again, I only think that I cannot forgive Haishima Kou for stealing Ryouta's smile. Isn't that stupid? So many things, and the tiniest is what makes me declare something like that.

Death is so permanent, though. Those who died by his hand, their presence is no longer in this world. Their world ended the moment it dared make contact with that of Haishima Kou. There are those who died that we knew - both Ryouta and I will keep Makita-san in our hearts - and yet, that is all in the past tense. Sudden death and an unbearable pain we can only distance ourselves from by living, living, _continuing to live_. And we will. We will live, and we will remember.

And all while we live, Ryouta will look at me with those eyes. He will smile, but I'll see it in him. Even in our moments of peace and tranquillity we'll know, we'll both _know_. That shared experience that brought us together has become our weight to bear - we know, but only _we_ can know. Nobody else can know, that _has_ to be the case. More than that, though, nobody else would believe us to begin with. Vampires?! _I might have expected that of Ryouta but to hear you say something like that, Takuto...! It's not April Fools, is it--?_

Like that, it becomes our secret. Something that only we know. Somewhere only we were. Something only we could have experienced. That shared event, bringing us together. Binding us together. Having been through that, how could we go to anybody else...? We have to stay together, because only _we know_. Only I know the reason for the pain in Ryouta's eyes. Only Ryouta knows so much of me and _is still willing to forgive_. He doesn't care what happened _because Takuto is Takuto--!_ and I wonder if I'd ever be lucky enough to encounter anybody else so in love they'd be blind even to murder--

(But you know that pain too, don't you Ryouta? How is it that we were able to escape in the first place...? Ah, yes. Murder. The only way out of that world was to kill he who ruled over it. And you did, didn't you? Murderer. Killer. How does it feel, Ryouta?)

(I smile.)

(How does it _feel_?)

In a world that was strictly made up of 'me' and 'them', Ryouta was the one bridge between them. I could ignore the behaviour he thought secret so as to not class him alongside 'those' people - those in the past who sought my body for their own ends, who'd touch and coerce with one aim in mind, those _unforgivable_. Ryouta, I believed, was not like that. I _had_ to believe him not like that for if not, what else _could_ I believe? Ryouta would whisper passion in the same sentence as my name, but he would never tell me and so, I could ignore it. That balance had to remain. It had to stay like that so life between us could be comfortable. Ryouta had to smile so that I could smile alongside him, see him as radiant and borrow some light for myself. Ryouta could be enthusiastic to the point of irritation and would often speak or act without thinking (or warning), but that was the Ryouta I was used to, who (I thought) _must never change_. Never change, Ryouta. I couldn't take it.

... Is what I thought. Before _that_ , I kept this idea of balance to the point of obsession, needing to keep things the same and petrified to the point of denial on any thought of change. Haishima changed everything and even now, so far on, we're still adjusting. I adjust to a Ryouta who has killed, who has lost, who has hurt. Ryouta... adjusts.

He adjusts.

Am I any different now to how I once was? I wonder this, sometimes. In certain situations, that thought drifts across my mind. When I lie in bed with the sheets pulled back and Ryouta crouched between my legs, sucking on me _as I have told him to_ and kneeling back and looking up at me not with eyes that worry for my sake, but for the sake of the situation. _Is that right? Is that what you want? Is that what you're telling me to do?_ He's too embarrassed to say anything like that, but it's all in his eyes. For all his hidden nights of passionate feeling, he can be so difficult to convince in _that_ situation. Is this different? Maybe. I never knew you like this, Ryouta. You never knew me like this, either. Is this how you thought it'd be? I don't think it's how either of us thought it would be. Touch me again, Ryouta. No, not like that--... yes, like _that_. Yes. _Yes_. Use your tongue more. Just a little--... no, don't move--... ah... yes... _yes_...

Every time I fuck him, he seems so lost. Every single time. Is that the look of one taken by the one they love? I wonder. I wonder, but I love to see that expression. He looks at me when I fuck him and that's not worry, that's _fear_. Are you scared, Ryouta? I laugh. But you said you loved me, though...! I watched you masturbate, saying my name over and over as if possessed. Was this not what you thought of? Was this not what you were thinking? Tell me what you were thinking, Ryouta. Tell me what you thought of so perhaps we can act it out, so it can be like how you imagined. I want to make you happy, Ryouta. After all, I _do_ love you. Love you so very much.

I never had such thoughts. The thought of this, of all of this, disgusted me. So much so that my world became that of 'me' and 'them' - those who would pertain to this sickening display and those... those who wouldn't. In my world as I lived it, in the areas where that was important, that seemed only to be me. Every section of my life would be punctuated by those I couldn't trust, by those who betrayed my trust by becoming like _that_. Becoming one of _them_.

Even I am like that, now. That world that was once only 'me' now lies empty. Because of Haishima Kou, I have become that kind of disgusting person. Disgusting, awful, terrible. I think those things when Ryouta touches me and I smile, because it amuses me. Because those things--... it's not that they've become unforgivable, but _I've_ become unforgivable. I've fallen to those depths. I have become one of _them_. I'll walk into the room and tell Ryouta I'm going to fuck him just to see his reaction, some of the time. I follow through on that promise, but it's the reaction that makes me laugh. Again, he's so obvious; he never says it, but _this isn't like you, Takuto._

 _This isn't like you_.

If you're going to throw yourself into the unforgivable, then why not revel in it? Let's rut like the animals we are, if that's what the world's so concerned with. Isn't that right, don't you think? Ryouta? It seems to be what's so important. What's _most_ important. So many people wanted to take that from me, and in the end, it was indeed taken. Maybe it was only a matter of time. Those 'ceremonies'. Isn't that funny, calling such a thing a 'ceremony'? This rite, this ritual. Much more, and I might have become a vampire. Isn't that funny?

Don't you think...?

We're not even pure enough for that, anymore. Oh, but you never were, were you? If only virgins can become vampires then perhaps it really is best not to be one. Still. Loss and murder stole away innocence in the days of my youth but for what it was worth, my body was still 'pure'. I managed to keep that, _only that_. A note of cleanliness in a disgusting world. Haishima took that and made me dirty (dirtier than I was) and yet still, even in that, there was a kind of purity. Because Haishima was a vampire. Because I was to become a vampire. Because only one whose body has not known that sort of carnal disgust can become so changed. Like untouched snow, that one truth remained pure and you, Ryouta, ruined even that. I remember it even now, those days. Back then. Back _then_. In that place.

I remember those days because I don't think I've changed. For all that we've changed, my mind took that moment and broke the hourglass. In that moment, in that madness, I was changing and _now I'm the same_.

Am I different to how I was before, Ryouta? Definitely. Have I changed?... Not since then.

You broke the ceremony, Ryouta. Like that, I suppose, you saved me.

(I suppose.)

(I always assumed my soul broken and so fought to keep my body whole. After that failed, you picked up the pieces. So I love you, because I have to. Because it was _you_ , Ryouta. Because it could only ever be you.)

... I am not a vampire.

After everything that happened, that is all I can say: I am not a vampire.

I am not a vampire but even now, I feel shades of darkness inside me where one once was, or had the potential to be. With those ceremonies, my body was being prepared and it was being changed. It was being changed, but Ryouta stopped it. ( _Stopped it too late. This wheel is already turning, Ryouta._ )

I feel it inside me still, that potential. That which was changing, that which _changed_. Certain desires that lay dormant before, other desire that never even _existed_ before. Sometimes I feel and I feel where, inside me, a vampire could have been. Other times I feel and feel where a vampire _should_ have been. An emptiness of something that doesn't quite fit. Something entirely disconnected, something that only exists inside my mind. Something somewhere was changed and can't be changed back and _have I changed, Ryouta?_

Sometimes I want him to disagree. Tell me I'm the same as ever I was, but I know I'm not and that he can't. Because as much as he watches me with worry, so too does he watch me with fear. I know why he worries and I know what he's scared of. I don't think I can become a vampire, not now. Not after what happened and not with Haishima now dead. Can I, though? We don't know enough about this and those who did are now dead or forever missing to us. I don't think I can become a vampire now. I don't _think_ I can.

... But what would you do if I did, Ryouta...? That's what you worry about. If those changes should pull me further and become different and permanent. That I would change and change and become something completely alien to you. That I would become that kind of monster - and a vampire _is_ a monster - and, maybe you worry that I would kill you? Perhaps. If I were a vampire, I don't know what would change. I don't know how I'd be. I only know how much I feel is different for the failed attempt that I represent, and so can only speculate on what it would have been like to go _further_. A vampire is different from a human, right? And a human is different from a vampire. But I was being changed into a vampire. I could have become one. Could I still call myself human?

Of course, I tell myself quickly. Of course I can. I'm not a vampire, so I am human. It's as easy as that, a completely black-and-white issue.

There are different moods that manifest themselves. The occasional moment in day-to-day life - standing in the supermarket waiting for the cashier to pass my groceries, that thought hits in from nowhere. _Of course I'm not a vampire_. And I walk home and put the groceries away and the phone goes and it's Tsukasa, and Ryouta's with him, so I meet up with them and the others and think nothing more of it.

And then there are other times, times when Ryouta and I are alone, and I'm above him and _inside_ him and his fists are clenched against the bedsheets, and I see a submissive side to him I never had access to before. Never had need to witness. If it's me, then he submits completely. Whatever I ask, he eventually complies to. Because it's me. Because he loves me. Because we love each other. Right? This is how it works, this is how it is. My arms are wrapped around and under his chest and my head hooked over his shoulder, breathing whispers that shudder into the shell of his ear. My voice is low and I feel him tremble for it. He finds it so hard to contain himself, it amazes me to look back on those times he thought I wasn't watching and think how quiet he was then, in comparison. But that was that and this is this, and I'm touching him now. Doing this kind of thing. So much different to how it was imagined and _so_ much stronger.

I press my lips to his shoulder and know I shouldn't but do and _feel it_. Let my breath fall that bit more ragged. Let other thoughts, in the heat of the moment, cross my mind.

 _If I cut you, you would bleed._

 _If I bit you, and bit you here--..._

I think on that. I think on blood. I think on _your_ blood, Ryouta. Sometimes you can be clumsy, and you'll cut yourself. And I'm there, because you've cut yourself and you're bleeding and there's blood and I see that blood and _I need that blood I need blood Ryouta I need your blood_

and here in this situation

this 'ceremony', this ritual between the two of us

I'm not a vampire

and you're too soiled and filthy to become one

(you animal)

but

but you're human, and so

so

you

 _bleed_

(and I press my lips to your shoulder and my teeth to your neck and it's unsatisfying because I'm _not_ a vampire and I can't bite like they do and I don't have that strength or that will to have that strength and don't know where to bite and _how_ and how deep and do you know how hard it is, Ryouta, to puncture human skin? You cry out when I try to bite you and I don't know what you're thinking, if you're thinking of _this_ or thinking of _that_ or thinking of _back then_ and it doesn't matter what you think because you're not saying what it is and _you never tell me what you're thinking, Ryouta_ and I'm fucking you, I'm fucking you until your voice is high and quivering and you can't think of _anything_ and

and I'm not thinking about this because I can't think about it, because I'm fucking you but that's only secondary to this _need_ \--)

 _I need this, Ryouta_

 _It's not a thirst to be slaked, it's a need to be satisfied_

(-- but I'm not a vampire so maybe this can't satisfy me after all)

... I don't dare cut you for that reason. Not because it would hurt you, not because it would scare you, but because I don't know what would happen. I think to myself, should I be worried on this line of thought? ...Probably. I shouldn't want to hurt you, but that thought sets me thinking and makes me hungry makes me _need_. So I try not to think of it, but my thoughts move back there more often than not. Even when it's only that you've cut yourself while cooking, I feel that space _where the vampire was_ and feel the madness pulling me back into an embrace that feels far more comfortable than it should. I see that fear in your eyes once more, and begrudgingly admit it justified. You should be scared, Ryouta. You shouldn't be bleeding in my presence. That's just asking for trouble, surely?... If I cut you and you bled for me, then perhaps I wouldn't be able to control myself. Perhaps that would convince whatever molecules inside me changed, back then during that time. Maybe I'd kill you without meaning to and, in my madness, wouldn't care. Who knows? I don't.

I pull myself another cigarette, because that's a harsh need I _can_ satisfy. I stand on the steps to the apartment and watch smoke rise into the air and as Ryouta gets dinner ready inside, I lean back and I wonder. I wonder on things I shouldn't and things I'll never tell Ryouta. If I told him, he'd only worry. (...More than usual.)

 _We've both killed before, haven't we?_

 _Dead people don't need their blood._

 _Vampires kill, don't they?_

I throw these fragments around in my mind, knowing that they all lead to some sort of whole, but not willing to entertain the prospect of what that whole could be. Knowing that we are unforgivable, but knowing that we could be _more_ unforgivable. But that's fine, isn't it? Because at the moment, we have this--... this kind of balance. I unleash need on you and you take that, absorb it, keep it from spilling out into our daily life to where these things could be problematic. Because only we two know, right? Only we know of this. Only we know what's different to be able to ring the changes. Have any of the others noticed? I wonder. I'm sure they wouldn't say anything unless it became a problem, and we're not going to let it become a problem. Are we, Ryouta? We won't let them know there's anything wrong for them to worry in the first place.

I sit on the steps and watch the pathway opposite, on the other side of the road to our apartment building. This end of the city is quieter, but people still live here, still go about their daily lives as they, as normal people, are allowed to do so. As I smoke, I watch a man walk along the path. If he knows I'm watching, he doesn't acknowledge me. Middle-aged, walking at his own pace, it takes a handful of minutes for him to enter my field of vision, walk across it, leave into the city beyond and become forgotten to my memory.

I wonder about his life. If he has a family. What his family might be like. What his life with them would be like.

( _what it would be like if he bled--_ )

I flick my dying cigarette to the pavement and stub it out when I stand up. I hear Ryouta calling from inside and so I head back, letting those mundane thoughts fill and occupy my mind. I wonder what he's cooked? It smells delicious.

( _It's quite easy for a balance to change, isn't it...?_

We both know that.

Know it more than anybody.)

(--- and so, I think on.)


End file.
